Our main reason for going to Australia was to ride the Indian Pacific across the Outback. The train goes from Perth on the west coast to Adelaide in the south, and then continues on to Sydney. We took the segment from Perth to Adelaide, which departed Perth at 11:00 AM on Sunday and arrived in Adelaide at about 7:30 on Tuesday.
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| India Pacific about to depart Perth. |
We had our own sleeper compartment, which was a bench seat by day, and bunk beds by night. A toilet, sink, and (very small) shower were in the compartment. There was a club car and dining car, so we weren't trapped in the compartment all of the time.
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| Our compartment by day |
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| Our compartment by night |
We left Perth on schedule, and over the remaining daylight hours, the view changed from urban to semi-forest, to wheat, and more wheat.
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| On the outskirts of Perth |
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| Semi-forest near Perth |
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| Wheat |
Meanwhile on the train, when we weren't lounging, we were eating--3 full courses for both lunch and dinner.
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| The dining car. |
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| In the lounge car |
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| A little Australian train humo(u)r. |
At about 11:00 PM on Sunday, we arrived at Kalagoorie, the largest town (about 30,000) and the home of the world's largest open pit mine. The train stopped there for 3 hours, so we took a tour. Unfortunately, the town was in complete darkness, and the mine wasn't much better. Here are a few shots:
When the sun rose on Monday, we were on the Nullarbor Plain, on the longest stretch of straight track in the world. "Nullarbor" means "without trees". See if you can tell why.
In the afternoon we arrived in
Cook, which at one time had a population of about 50 people, but now has a population of 4 (four)--it's basically a ghost town with nothing but a souvenir shop.
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| The Cook "station", such as it is. |
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| The Cook jail(s), or so they claim |
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| Not sure what they would be evacuating from.... |
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| The former school in Cook. |
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| "Queen City of the Nullarbor" |
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| The entirety of housing in Cook. |
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| A salute to Murray Sims |
After Cook, there was a few hundred more miles of Nullarbor Plain.
Eventually, we began seeing more trees.
The next morning we arrived in Adelaide. The trip was more interesting than one might think a 2-day train trip through nowhere would be. Just eating took up about 4 hours a day, and we spent most of the rest of the daylight hours in the club car, which always had plenty of people in it. We were about the youngest people on our part of the train (the train was divided into about 6 sections, each with a club car and a dining car. Most of the passengers were couples or single people from Australia, with a few Americans and Europeans thrown in for variety. We wound up sitting with a different couple at every meal, so by the time we arrived in Adelaide, we had met almost everyone on our section of the train, including an guy who once coached a professional baseball team in Australia. It's not cheap, either--about $2,400 for the two of us.
Next--
Adelaide
